


Something Half-Remembered

by Solovei



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Bilingual Character(s), Iceland, M/M, Making Out, POV Original Character, Post-Apocalypse, Sheep, and possibly more?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 11:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3379946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solovei/pseuds/Solovei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Year 1. The Hotel Survivors, stranded in Keflavik Airport at the closing of the airports, are trying to eke out new lives in Iceland, while dealing with the loss of everything they knew in the outside world. For Mikkel Sorensen, unambitious 20-something Swedish-American wiling his time away in New York City, it's a chance to start a new life, and maybe that warrants doing new things. Especially when a handsome red-haired stranger comes by...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Half-Remembered

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of context that you will probably need:  
> [stclairvoyant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stclairvoyant/pseuds/stclairvoyant) and I had written a few things from the perspective of people who happened to be passing through Iceland when the borders were closed, and were therefore kind of stuck. One of them was this guy, Mikkel Sorensen: Born in Sweden, moved to America with his parents at 14, currently 27 and working on a communal sheep farm in Mosfellsdalur (about 30 minutes outside of Reykjavik)  
> Árni, obviously, is the Icelandic coast guard dude from the prologue.  
> Hannah is an American girl that Mikkel befriended at the US embassy; she was en-route to Denmark to study when this all went down. She lives with Mikkel and his parents at the farm.  
> Grapevine is an English-language newspaper circulated in Iceland.  
> Translations in-text. Thanks to Lars for explaining that there are two different kinds of making out in Swedish.

Árni would come around every few months, always staying for two or three days before returning to wherever he came from. They didn’t know where he lived or how long he travelled to get here, or even how he had heard about them, just that his help was invaluable. He, unlike most of his fellow Icelanders, took their status as outsiders as a cry for help rather than a reason for suspicion and quiet disdain. And he knew a lot about raising sheep for someone who seemed so young.

Mikkel was quietly smitten. He was smitten with the unruly flame-kissed hair, the green eyes, the awkward laugh. But, they were in the middle of a famine, part of a somewhat looked-down-upon social group, and he now spent his days doing farm work. All these things added up to the fact that he had little time or energy to consider dating. So in that way, Arni stirred something in him that reminded him, perhaps, of his old life.

It was spring when he came this time, a cloudy day in mid-April. Mikkel had been fixing a broken post in the horse stables when he heard the familiar voice call out from a distance. It occurred to him that he had never actually been alone with Árni before. The prospect made him both excited and nervous, as if he was a schoolgirl with a crush.

After a quick discussion about the trip and the weather, they walked side by side to the barn. It had been a golf course before they got there, he remembered. Someone from the department of agriculture helped them convert everything and get things set up; in this way, the government was usually more kind than the people.

“Your Icelandic is getting better,” Árni said.   
“Oh-- th-thank you…” Mikkel managed to stutter out, taken aback by the compliment and saying it in Swedish instead, garnering a laugh. Realizing his mistake, he switched back to Icelandic to the best of his ability as they discussed how their little flock was doing. Though he’d been learning it for several months now it still came peppered with small bits of English and Swedish, and his accent never quite went away.   
  
“Hey, are your folks home? There’s something I wanted to, um… talk to your mother about, if I could.” Árni asked as he accepted the cheese sandwich Mikkel handed him. They were sitting just outside the enclosure, their conversation punctuated occasionally by the calls of sheep.  
“Oh, um… no… you missed them, they left for Reykjavik this morning. Some old Swedish lady was running a high fever, and… well… you know.”  
“Yeah… I know. It’s… it’s fine.” The redhead waved his hand with a dismissive chuckle, though the slight of disappointment in his voice was obvious. As such, Mikkel tried to change the subject.  
“S-so um, how are they doing? I know we’re kind of… pretty amateur at this.”  
“Oh, no they’re fine. You guys are doing great. You should have some babies soon, too.” said the Icelander through a mouth full of sandwich. As he swallowed, Mikkel tried not to stare at the curve of his neck and shoulders.

As they got ready to head back to the main house, it had began to rain, and rather heavily. “Aaah! Just our luck!” Árni exclaimed, pulling a hood over his hair as he dashed into the barn. Mikkel rounded up his things and quickly followed. “It’s not that far to the house… we can make a run for it, if you want?” He asked, tripping slightly over the prepositions.  
“It’s okay, we can stay here a bit longer.”

For a while, they sat together in silence, the smell of animals and rain mixing together under the tall roof. The Icelander had leaned back against a haystack, holding his arms behind his head and humming a tune Mikkel did not recognize. The Swede could feel something bubbling up inside him, a faint glimmer of an idea, something half-remembered; a dream that belonged to someone else. “Árni, may I tell you something?” he began.  
“Hm?”

“I, um…hmm...”  
“You can say it in English if you want.”  
“Okay, uh-- thanks? I just… Listen, I don’t usually do this… I… _used_ to not do this. Like, ever. But… things are different now, aren’t they? We’re all just trying to survive, make it through one day and then the next… I mean, sometimes I try to look at the big picture of… everything that happened, and I get so scared. Terrified. So now, I just… consider things one day at a time. If I make it through today, it will be okay. But, what I really mean is...” He paused for a moment and glanced at Arni again; those green eyes looked back at him with interest and attention, so Mikkel continued. “Well, every time you come by, I don’t know if it’s the last time we-- I will ever see you again. And that-- well, it makes me sad. Because I really like you. I think you’re very handsome.”

He found it hard to believe that it was really him who had just said all of that. It didn’t seem to be connected to who he knew himself to be, who he was… before. But perhaps, he thought, that Mikkel was gone and the person he was now lived by different rules, different systems. Still he felt his face grow hot, and looked down at the floor, waiting for the Icelander’s reaction.

Finally, the  redhead grinned. “Oh. Ah… hehe… Um, I think you look pretty nice too.” He said, looking at Mikkel coyly. A few moments passed before he spoke again.

“S-so um… what do we do now?”  
“Um… vill du kelas?” [sw: Do you want to make out?][  
](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RBnCU8P8M5PKR9lPy0mFJZOqg86j2dOL4oAEw9Ju3Ic/edit#bookmark=id.5ak48lxg3w2s)

They started off hurriedly, hungrily, as if their life depended on it. Some awkward smiles were exchanged, and they tried again, taking their time, remembering that they had time to take.

“Have you done this before?”  
“A couple of times…”

Mikkel leaned back and let Árni take the lead, felt him undo the elastic he had tied his hair back with, one of Hannah’s. No longer needing to adhere to standards of professionalism, he had been letting it grow since coming here, and it spilled now past his shoulders in a rough cascade of amber honey. He did however, allow his hands to bury into the bright red waves, committing to memory the way they curved around his fingers.

Shirts and sweaters were tugged off at random and unceremoniously deposited on the floor. Árni seemed to prefer many loose-fitting layers, so when he pulled the last of these off, Mikkel was surprised to see a broad-shouldered frame supporting lean, sinewy muscle. He grinned, and then blushed when he saw the redhead return the smile. “Is… is this okay?” He breathed out in Icelandic. “Yeah… of course it’s okay, it’s… this is nice,” came the hasty reply.   
“Good… um… if it’s not… I mean, if… if you want to stop, just tell me?”

They fell back onto the haystacks, lips locked, breaths getting heavier. Árni fumbled for a moment with the opening of Mikkel’s jeans, smirking. “Ah.. sorry… it’s a little weird doing this on someone else…” he said under his breath, laughing into the kiss. The sound of zippers and buttons and fabric was almost swallowed up by the animals and the rain and the famine, but it was still there.

Afterwards, they curled up together, spent and quiet, the smiles on their faces those of blissful ignorance. After a while, Mikkel spoke up.  
“Um… can I ask, what it was you wanted to talk to my mother about?”  
“Oh, just… these dreams I keep having…”  
He contemplated this statement for a few moments before letting out a sigh and pulling Árni closer.

Hannah was waiting in the kitchen when they returned, exchanging coy glances.   
“Får jag fråga vad du är så glad över?" She asked, looking up from an old issue of Grapevine. [SW: Do I get to ask what you're so happy about?]  
“Nej~" answered Mikkel, leading Árni into his bedroom. [SW: No~]


End file.
